St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-04-07
ALL ABOUT WHISKY.
1t is Being Made i'm the United
States at the Rate of 100000 CAL
Ions n Dav,

1L - befnR MaOe In the Oh1teu
States at the Rate OF 100000 CAL
Ions n Day.
Omaha Herald.
The diStllleries Of the country are very
active just now. There are over 500 of
them now running. nearly $50 in fact, and
they are turning out intoxicants at the rate
of over 100000 gallons a day. They are
using over rs, 900 bushels of corn day and
over 1000 gallons of molasseS daily. This
is the busy time of the year with the dis
tillers. During this month and the next
there will be running between 600 and 700
diStillerieS in the country. Six months
from now there will be no more than
couple of hundred of them running, though
there are 1000 of them in the country.
These $50 now at work are the legitimate
Ones that is to say, those who
pay taxes and report to the
government the business they do. Besides
that number, there are lot of them rum
ming illegitimately - moonshining. The
fund provided for the prevention of illicit
distilling by the last congress has nearly
given out, and the distillers know it. Your
average mOonshiner is a pretty shrewd fell
low, and he manages in some way to keep
posted on the workings of the department.
The money for the detection of moonshin-
ers and for breaking up their stills ran low
several weeks ago, and the department
was unable to respond to the demands OF
the revenue officers for more deputies. The
diStillerS caught on to the situation, and
the result is that moOnShinerS are begin
ming to be very active in Kentucky, TenneS-
see. Northern Alabama, Georgia and North
Carolina.
Georgia is making more whisky to-day
than any other state Her $50 distilleries
now running are turning out 100, 600 gallons
of bourbon whisky daily. Six months from
now there will not be half this number run
ming. and they will only be turning out
perhaps 10000 gallons day. North Caro-
lima has the largest number of diStillerieS.
the number now running i'll the state being
something over 200. Yet they do not turn
out over 1900 gallons day, an average of
less than ten gallons apiece. On the other
hand, illinois, with only eighteen diStiller-
that the year round. Illinois makes
more whisky than any other state
in the Union. She turns out
nearly 25, 600. 900 gallons year, while Ken
lucky makes but Is, 100000 The Illinois
distlleries run about the same all the year
round, while the Kentucky fellows shut
down in the summer. 1t would be more
nearly correct to say that Illinois makes
more spirits than any other state. for really
very little of the article that is turned out
from the distillerieS of the state is whisky.
Nearly all that the big distilleries now
make is known to the trade as Cologne
spirits" This article is about the same as
alcohol, except that it is even more abso-
lutte in its purity than alcohol. When
these big distilleries that make this Cologne
spirits begin running off the prod
ucts of their mash tubs, they run the
first part as alcohol 1t has slight tinge
of color, and is not as absolute in Its purity
as that which follows later on. The opera
tor watches the stream of liquor as it
comes from the tub. and as he
sees it becomes absolutely pure
turns it into another tank, and it is termed
Cologne spirits. This is the highest grade
of distilled spirits, so pure that it is abso-
lutely colorless and ordorless. 1t is con-
centrated drunkenness, and when it is
wanted to be transformed into whisky it is
reduced to about one-half its strength with
water, some burnt sugar put in to give it
color, some glucose added to make it smooth
and oily, like old whisky, and it passes for
the real article. Many a supposed con-
nOisseur has smacked his lips over alleged
twenty-year-old whisky, and pronounced 1t
the finest in the country, when the article
he was complimenting was Cologne spirits
only month old, favored with glucose and
burnt sugar. On the whole. however. the
whisky of to-day is not, the revenue people
say, as hurtful as that turned out by the
whisky makers twenty years ago. The
chemical changes which were then per-
formed by dangerous acid are now pro-
duced by other means, and some of the
pOisons which destroyed the stomachs of
whisky drinkers then are not to be found
i'll the cup now.